For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are ...

Something had to diverge from the trunk eventually.

A rare chemical indicator suggests sponges may have arrived as the first animals on Earth. A sterol core is primarily composed of four fused carbon rings, along with carbon side chains and other ...

Studies looking at how sponges have evolved on a molecular level have suggested that spicules should be present over 700 ...

A team of scientists digging up some of the Earth’s oldest rocks has uncovered new chemical evidence that Earth’s first animals were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. The discovery relies on ...

SpongeBob SquarePants and his starfish best friend, Patrick Star, aren’t such cartoonish creatures after all. According to an image taken by a marine biologist doing remote deep-sea exploration this ...

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Wild dolphins use sea sponges as tools to hunt safely, revealing how animal culture survives despite hidden sensory costs.

Scientists have discovered which animal was the first to branch off from our collective common ancestor. For years, debate had raged over whether the first to diverge was the sea sponge or the comb ...